Editing Tristan da Cunha (section)

===Discovery===
[[File:Tristano da Acugna (Giovio Series) (cropped2).jpg|thumb|left|[[Portuguese Empire|Portuguese]] explorer and [[conquistador]] [[Tristão da Cunha]] is both the namesake of Tristan da Cunha and the first person to sight the island, in 1506.]]

The islands were first recorded as sighted in 1506 by [[Portugal|Portuguese]] explorer [[Tristão da Cunha]], though rough seas prevented a landing. He believed them to be uninhabited, and named the main island after himself, {{lang|pt|Ilha de Tristão da Cunha}}. It was later anglicised from its earliest mention on British [[Admiralty chart]]s to Tristan da Cunha Island. Some sources state that the Portuguese made the first landing in 1520, when ''Lás Rafael'', captained by Ruy Vaz Pereira, called at Tristan for water.<ref name="annals">{{cite book |url=http://www.tristan.it/TRISTAN/tristanlibri/tristan_annals.pdf |first1=Arnaldo |last1=Faustini |title=The Annals of Tristan da Cunha |date= 2003 |access-date=28 December 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150510041635/http://www.tristan.it/TRISTAN/tristanlibri/tristan_annals.pdf |archive-date=10 May 2015 |url-status=live |editor1-first=Paul |editor1-last=Carrol |translator1-first=Liz |translator1-last=Nysven |translator2-first=Larry |translator2-last=Conrad |page=9}}</ref>

The first undisputed landing was made on 7&nbsp;February 1643 by the crew of the [[Dutch East India Company]] ship ''Heemstede,'' captained by Claes Gerritsz Bierenbroodspot. The Dutch stopped at the island four more times in the next 25{{nbsp}}years, and in 1656 created the first rough charts of the archipelago.<ref name=headland>{{cite book |last=Headland |first=J.K. |year=1989 |title=Chronological list of Antarctic expeditions and related historical events |location=Cambridge, UK |publisher=Cambridge University Press |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Sg49AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA63 |access-date=28 December 2018 |isbn=9780521309035}}</ref>

The first full [[Geophysical survey|survey]] of the archipelago was made by the crew of the French [[corvette]] ''Heure du Berger'' in 1767. The first scientific exploration was conducted by French naturalist [[Louis-Marie Aubert du Petit-Thouars]], who stayed on the island for three days in January 1793, during a French mercantile expedition from [[Brest, France]], to [[Mauritius]]. Thouars made botanical collections and reported traces of human habitation, including [[fireplaces]] and overgrown [[gardens]], probably left by Dutch explorers in the 17th&nbsp;century.<ref name=headland/>

On his voyage out from Europe to East Africa and India in command of the [[Austrian East India Company|Imperial Asiatic Company of Trieste and Antwerp]] ship, ''Joseph and Theresa'', [[William Bolts]] sighted Tristan da Cunha, put a landing party ashore on 2&nbsp;February 1777 and hoisted the Imperial flag, naming it and its neighbouring islets the Brabant Islands.<ref>{{cite book |first=Nicolaus |last=Fontana |title=Tagebuch der Reise des k.k. Schiffes Joseph und Theresia nach den neuen österreichischen Pflanzorten in Asia und Afrika |translator-first=Joseph |translator-last=Eyerel |place=Dessau und Leipzig |year=1782}}<br />re-published as {{cite book |editor-first=G. |editor-last=Pilleri |title=Maria Teresa e le Indie orientali: La spedizione alle Isole Nicobare della nave Joseph und Theresia e il diario del chirurgo di bordo |place=Bern, CH |publisher=Verlag de hirnanatomischen Institutes |year=1982 |page=9}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |first=Guillaume |last=Bolts |title=Précis de l'Origine, de la Marche et de la Chûte de la Compagnie d'Asie et d'Afrique dans les Ports du Littoral Autrichien |place=Liege |year=1785 |page=14}}<br />cited in {{cite book |first=Ernest Jean |last=van Bruyssel |title=Histoire du commerce et de la marine en Belgique |place=Bruxelles |year=1865 |volume=3 |pages=295–299}}<br />and cited in {{cite book |first=Jan |last=Brander |title=Tristan da Cunha, 1506–1902 |place=London|publisher=Unwin |year=1940 |pages=49–50}}<br />and cited in article {{cite encyclopedia |encyclopedia=Biographie nationale ... de Belgique |place=Bruxelles |year=1905 |title=Charles Proli}}</ref> However, no settlement or facilities were ever set up there by the company.{{Citation needed|date=October 2023}}

After the outbreak of the [[American Revolutionary War]] halted [[penal transportation]] to the [[Thirteen Colonies]], British prisons started to overcrowd. As several stopgap measures proved to be ineffective, the British Government announced in December&nbsp;1785 that it would proceed with the settlement of [[New South Wales]]. In September&nbsp;1786 [[Alexander Dalrymple]], presumably goaded by Bolts's actions, published a pamphlet<ref>{{cite book |author-link=Alexander Dalrymple |first=A. |last=Dalrymple |title=A Serious Admonition to the Publick on the Intended Thief Colony at Botany Bay |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-19515009/view?partId=nla.obj-19595227#page/n2/mode/1up |page=2 |id=NLA part ID 19595227 |via=National Library of Australia |place=London |publisher=Sewell}}</ref> with an alternative proposal of his own for settlements on Tristan da Cunha, [[Île Saint-Paul|St.&nbsp;Paul]] and [[Île Amsterdam|Amsterdam]] islands in the Southern Ocean.{{Citation needed|date=October 2023}}

Captain [[John Blankett]], [[Royal Navy|R.N.]], also suggested independently to his superiors in August&nbsp;1786 that convicts be used to establish a British settlement on Tristan.{{refn|{{cite letter |last=Blankett |first=John |author-link=John Blankett |recipient=Howe |subject=[settlement on Tristan da Cunha] |date=6 August 1786 |publisher=National Maritime Museum |place=Greenwich |id=HOW 3}}<br />cited in Frost (1980)<ref name=Frost_1980/>{{rp|pages=119,216}}}} In consequence, the Admiralty received orders from the government in October 1789 to examine the island as part of a general survey of the South Atlantic and the coasts of southern Africa.{{refn|{{cite letter |last=Grenville |recipient=Admiralty Lords |subject=[general survey of the South Atlantic] |date=3 October 1789 |publisher=Public Record Office |id=ADM 1/4154: 43}}<br />cited in Frost (1980)<ref name=Frost_1980>{{cite book |first=Alan |last=Frost |title=Convicts & Empire: A naval question, 1776–1811 |place=Melbourne |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1980}}</ref>{{rp|pages=148, 220}}}} That did not happen, but an investigation of Tristan, Amsterdam and St. Paul was undertaken in December&nbsp;1792 and January&nbsp;1793 by [[George Macartney, 1st Earl Macartney|George Macartney]], Britain's first ambassador to China. During his voyage to China, he established that none of the islands were suitable for settlement.<ref>{{cite book |first=Helen H. |last=Robbins |title=Our First Ambassador to China |place=London |publisher=Murray |year=1908 |pages=197–210}}</ref>